Mike Murray essay -- Comic Relief

26 September 2005

Comic Relief

--by Mike Murray

Do you remember when Comics were funny?

Do you recall the time when the expression, "See you in the funny papers" had meaning? It was actually an insult. It implied that the object of one's criticism was a little loopy -- that he or she didn't completely "get it," didn't fully "reality test." But that was hardly harsh rebuke. The funnies were in those days sweetly surreal; they soothed and comforted those chafed by the rough realities of everyday life.

The Comics, the Funnies -- those section titles were once genuinely reflective of the content they headed. It saddens me to conclude that such is less and less the case.

Sure, there are a few strips around today that amuse in non-political -- if not always apolitical -- ways. Some authors and illustrators of syndicated strips do manage to fulfill their intended purpose: to give readers a much-needed break from serious and weighty matters.

Local, national, and international news sections of newspapers provide ample opportunity for the presentation of grim content. Those sections inform; they likewise irritate and alarm. Staff writers and columnists seem obsessed these days with sensationalism. They seem determined to keep readers angry or upset about this thing or that.

Most people who turn to the Comics section do so in the hope of achieving diversion. They seek to avoid unpleasantness, if only for a few moments. They seek light, amusing fare. The last thing they wish to encounter in the "funny papers" is more pointed pontification.

There are a few cartoonists out there who either resist entirely the urge to take political cheap shots, or are at least careful to do so in non-partisan ways. Those precious few poke fun at politicians in general; they don't single out either Republicans or Democrats for specific ridicule.

Much in the tradition of Will Rogers (whose heyday, I am pleased to report, was before my time ...it's getting harder and harder to say that ...I have to work it in where I can), they jab at our elected and appointed officials en masse. Those welcome souls resist the temptation to take sides in the one section of newspapers that should offer shell-shocked readers respite.

I recall the Shoe comic strip. There was one character in it who seemed to me to be a representation of the late Thomas "Tip" O'Neill. Congressman O'Neill was then Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, and a Democrat. Leaning politically as I did in those days a little to the left of center, I wondered if the person who penned the strip was playing politics.

After O'Neill's retirement came the answer: definitely not. The character lived on -- as a composite caricature of federal legislators. (As a matter of fact, it eventually dawned on me that the figure as drawn also resembled a few Republicans, Henry Hyde among them.)

So the Shoe strip offered readers some light-hearted yuks at the expense of politicians, without taking sides. If only there were more like it. Also welcome are the strips that avoid political commentary altogether. A few survive, but their ranks are thinning.

Most common are the strips that work in periodic criticism. Such strips go days at a time without getting down into the political mud, then yield to the temptation without warning. They are insidious in that they lull readers, people attempting to briefly escape grim news and political claptrap, into false senses of security.

A few days into non-political story lines and then wham: a biting remark by a character about the economy (always bad, regardless of reality), about a particular party (guess which one comes in for the greater abuse), or about the government's inability to solve all of our problems -- a standard of competence applied more heavily to one side of the political aisle than to the other.

Less insidious (but more disturbing) are the strips that have descended almost completely into the realm of political propaganda. They are less insidious in that they are obvious and transparent in their motives; but they are more disturbing in that they engage in a practice that is wholly inappropriate to Comics sections.

Even worse is the fact that such strips seldom accurately reflect the behaviors and mind-sets of the targets of their venom. Authors of them maliciously attribute positions to their political enemies that they do not hold; they describe acts of commission that are pure fiction (and ones of omission that are equally fanciful); they relate utterances that never were spoken. If they treated private citizens thusly, they'd be successfully sued for everything they own.

Victims of such practice can well identify with Paul Newman's character in The Verdict, who besieged the presiding, hostile-to-him judge (who insisted on taking over the questioning Newman's witness) in something of the following manner: "Your honor: If you must try my case, I'd appreciate your not losing it for me."

Comedy often comes with a bite, to be sure. It often gives voice to gentle complaint. Hence the expression, "Many a [perceived] truth is uttered in jest." As comedian Ellen Degeneres has noted, however, wrapping insult in humor does not remove the sting.

When someone says something to her like, "I hope you didn't pay for that haircut. Just kidding!," the appended disclaimer doesn't count for much. As Degeneres points out, such jokesters "...don't know how to kid properly, because we both should be laughing."

Though surely an annoyance to those on the receiving end of such barbs, that type of banter is relatively harmless. These days, however, much of the hateful content offered by politically motivated cartoonists, demagogues masquerading as humorists, goes way beyond that.

A few responsible newspapers run such strips in their Op-Ed sections. That's something of an improvement, I suppose. But if fairness were truly important to managers of those publications, they would run competing strips, ones espousing opposing political viewpoints. It is a troubling sign of the times that such is rarely the case.

A growing amount of what appears in Comics sections is purely partisan commentary. Writers of such stuff and nonsense indulge themselves in ways that I contend are inappropriate -- with respect both to the forums in which they appear, and in their overrepresentation of one point of view.

But let's consider an alternate stance for a moment. Let's suppose that you work for a newspaper and are in total disagreement with my contention regarding the reasonableness of heavily political content appearing in Comics sections. Let's say that you don't give two hoots about the fact that such material is presented with increasing frequency, and that it overwhelmingly tilts in one political direction.

If you have no responsibility for managing or marketing, you might possibly afford yourself the luxury of such misguided (cavalier, anyway) thinking. But, if you are concerned with the financial health of your publication -- and, really, that should be every employee -- you're playing with fiscal fire. Because the plain fact is that this country is split roughly 50-50 along political lines. If you choose to "humor" one half of your audience at the expense of the other, an eventual price will be paid.

Readership in print publications is on an alarming decline. The circulation skid owes to many factors, of course -- not all of them political. But the simple truth is that readers put off by bias will first turn away from sections of newspapers they find offensive and then, perhaps, from the publications in their entirety (if they perceive that the bias is too heavy-handed, that it is too pervasive).

Even the first retreat on the part of readers will impact the effectiveness of ads placed in the offending sections; the second abandonment will have even greater consequence. When advertisers wise up to the fact that the presence of mega doses of political commentary -- commentary that slants too heavily in one direction and that runs throughout publications -- carries the risk of driving potential customers away from their ads, they will be decidedly displeased. And they'll express their displeasure financially. They'll express their displeasure by making fewer "buys."

And that eventual consequence, I feel certain, will get editors' and publishers' collective attention. Because, where the concept of fair play often fails to move folks in the media (a group overwhelmingly registered to, and loyal to, one particular political party), economic reality just might succeed.

Maybe striving for more balance in the presentation of political material that runs in the "funny papers" (and elsewhere) would appease some readers. Perhaps moving all politically driven content to the Op-Ed section would make a difference (as might labeling columns that appear in other sections "Opinion" -- the current reliance on implication being not sufficiently clear).

While we're at it, why not take the political nastiness out of Comics sections altogether? Why not run only those strips that are, you know, funny? Then we could all be amused. Then we could all laugh. Unless, of course, the mainstream media's bias is just too great for it to overcome.

Just kidding.